


Another Kind of Memory

by schizoauthoress



Category: DCU (Comics), Justice League International (Comics)
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Imprisonment, Interrogation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-16
Updated: 2017-02-16
Packaged: 2018-09-24 20:02:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9783740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/schizoauthoress/pseuds/schizoauthoress
Summary: Do people talk about mental illness in this time period?  Michael isn't sure, but it seems that Ted sure doesn't. (Justice League International v1 #17 timestamp)





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mominik @ tumblr.com](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=mominik+%40+tumblr.com).



> Prompt/Fill: from [mominik](http://mominik.tumblr.com/) \-- "ted sees booster’s self harm scars for the first time"

_“Some people see scars, and it is wounding they remember. To me they are proof of the fact that there is healing.”  
― Linda Hogan_

The first time Ted sees Booster's scars, he doesn't realize what they are. After all, his own hands and arms have little white burns scars all over them -- from time spent in laboratories, and secret hideaways, working on his inventions. Ted's scars are markers of carelessness and inattention, and so he assumes that is the reason behind the small, irregular pink and white patches on Booster's skin. Even where they are situated -- on Booster's arms, for the most part, with at least one on an upper thigh (usually hidden by boxers or swim trunks) -- seems to support that assumption.

Then he realizes that the scars are deliberate. The placement, the spacing, is too neat to be random -- Ted puts it together when he finally notices where Booster's scars aren't.

They're in Bialya at the time. Specifically, in a Bialyan government prison. Ted and Booster had been thrown into a shared cell after being gassed in their hotel room and stripped of their clothes. Both of them are each given only a pair of ill-fitting greyish pants to wear -- it's the barest concession to modesty.

Booster catches him scratching hash marks in the plaster layer of the cell wall -- one for each time either he or Booster gets pulled out for interrogation -- and goes a little wild with the idea. Ted watches him scrape out the words 'THIS SUCKS' with a smiley face underneath the phrase, then stops paying attention. Ted had been the focus of the latest interrogation at the time, and was still aching from the experience.

Their tormentors don't much care for witty banter, and will express displeasure by striking out with a leather strap or thin cane. Ted takes a while to find a position on his cot that hurts the least, then drifts into an uneasy doze.

Ted isn't sure how much time has passed when he sneezes himself awake.

Booster pauses in the middle of scratching an arrow into the wall, and gives him a contrite look through the faint motes of drifting plaster dust. Ted doesn't quite buy that look, especially when he reads upside down the word that Booster had labeled him with. He says dryly, "I'm a 'sucker', huh?"

Booster grins, but if he gives some sort of excuse, Ted doesn't hear it. Perhaps it's just the change in perspective, or the fact that Booster's arm is currently dominating his field of vision, but Ted puts it together then.

Some of those burn scars are on Booster's forearms and some of them are on his upper arms. But none of them are around Booster's wrists or hands.

'A quarterback wouldn't want to damage his hands,' Ted tells himself, and hates that thought the moment he has it. He doesn't want to know this.

He sits up and snarks at Booster instead.

****

Later that day -- second or third of their imprisonment, but Ted isn't quite sure, given that there's no natural light sources near the cell -- their jailer returns with a slam of the heavy wooden door. Because Booster complained about being hungry only moments before, Ted says,

"I do so hope that he's brought us another bucket of pig slop for lunch!"

Booster retorts, "Pig slop would be a step up from what they've been feeding us!" As the bearded Bialyan man comes closer, Booster directs his next words at the jailer. "Hey -- is that your face, or did your mother stick you in a waffle-iron when you were born?"

"Was that insult?" the Bialyan asks, English colored by his heavy accent.

Booster snorts. "'Was that insult?' Boy-oh-boy -- can this guy speak the King's English or what?"

"Was that more insult?"

Booster answers, "You want insult, dromedary-breath, here's insult!"

Ted scowls as his cellmate blows a raspberry at their jailer, and demands of Booster, "What are you doing?"

His blood runs cold at Booster's answer, especially when he notices their jailer pulling a gun.

Booster yells, "I want him to shoot me!"

"You want him to _what_?!" is all that Ted can sputter.

'You should have said something, anything; you should have confronted him, you should have asked,' Ted's thoughts whirl and crowd in his head. He knows he should react, move, stop this somehow, but he's frozen. 'Self harm can lead to life-threatening behavior, you know this -- you knew this! You didn't say anything and now if you don't do anything you're going to watch your friend die--'

"That's it! Shoot!" Booster is yelling. He throws his arms wide, throws his head back, as Ted watches in stunned horror. "I can't live like a trapped animal anymore!"

Before Ted can react and, thankfully, before the jailer can pull the trigger, the man suddenly seems to lunge forward. His head hits the bars of the cell with a loud noise, and his arm hangs stiff and outstretched between two of the bars.

"Oh, look," Booster says calmly, "You seem to have smashed your head against the bars. Now, how did _that_ happen?"

Ted presses a hand to his racing heart and takes a breath to calm himself down. "How _did_ that happen?" he asks.

Booster doesn't answer at first, preoccupied with how the Bialyan man is slowly sliding to the floor. He reaches for the keys on the man's belt, snagging them with a "Voila!"

"Y'know, you're making me feel awfully ineffectual."

Booster spares a moment to grin at Ted. "Well... if you must know, that yo-yo swiped my Legion flight ring -- and once I could goad him into getting close enough... it was a piece of cake to telepathically yank him against the bars." Booster holds up the ring in question.

Ted smiles back, more relieved than he dares to say. "I hate to say this, but... great thinking!"

And then all their energies are focused on the task of escaping, and Ted can put Booster's scars out of his mind.

****

Ted never catches Michael adding to his scars. He's relieved, and sickened by his own relief. He should want to help his friend. He should be watching for an opportunity to confront his friend. Still, what would he say? What does anyone say in that situation?

Is mental health treatment better in the future? Before, Ted would have said it must be. But how could Michael's self-inflicted burns scars be explained, if that were true?

Maybe they hadn't been made in the future. Maybe Michael was missing some treatment or medication only available in his home time, and the self harm was a side effect of withdrawing from it? 

'Too many questions, and not enough answers,' Ted tells himself. 'Too many questions, and not enough courage to bring them up to him.'

What if he's wrong, or if Michael just doesn't want to admit it and closes off? Ted could, possibly, make this worse.

Ted paces in front of the Bug, and worries.

****

"You know," Booster Gold says, one evening when it's just the two of them on watch for the latest supervillain activity, "we cured leprosy in the future. They're not leprosy scars."

Blue Beetle chokes on his mouthful of cola -- and Booster would be lying if he said that hadn't been an aim of timing the question thus -- and jerks upright from his slouched position. He doesn't spray the drink on the screens, but it's a close call. "Wh-what?"

"I know you've seen them. I don't know if you're trying to be polite, if mental illness isn't something that people talk about in this time, but you don't have to avoid looking at them." Booster wriggles his gloved fingers at Beetle. "It's not going to hypnotize you into doing the same if you look at them."

"I didn't think that!" Beetle protests.

Booster smiles at him. "You can ask, if you want."

Beetle gives him a slightly suspicious look, setting aside the can of cola. "Ask what?"

"What you want to ask. What do I have; why did I do it... I don't mind telling you. Because it's you."

"Okay..." Beetle still seems reluctant, but his gaze drifts to Booster's arms, where the collection of self-harm scars are currently hidden by the armored sleeves of Booster's costume. "What is your diagnosis?"

"Oh, I like the way you phrased that. Cool, precise, very scientific..." Booster grins at the affronted look that Beetle gives him. He lets his expression go serious, though, when he answers: "I have bipolar disorder. The first doctor I went to in this time called it manic depression, so I high-tailed it out of there. Even in this time, that classification is out of date."

"So you are on medication."

"Took care of it before my debut, Beetle ol' buddy." Booster glances at his share of the monitors, notes that all still seems quiet. "It takes a little occasional adjustment of the dosing, but my condition is under control these days."

"I assume that--" Beetle catches himself, and flushes red under his cowl at his own phrasing. "I mean... if it's under control now, it wasn't before, right?"

Booster nods. "I, ah... inflicted most of the scars when I was a teenager, when I first presented symptoms. I was going between manic phases and mixed states and there was really never a time that I could slow down, even if I felt like garbage. It might sound weird, but it took me a while to realize that something was wrong." He looks away, gives a sheepish sort of shrug. "I kind of thought... 'everyone must deal with this. And they seem fine, so what's wrong with you?'"

Beetle takes a moment to consider Booster's words, the expression that Booster privately called his 'pondering face' in full effect. He meets Booster's eyes before asking, "How did you realize?"

"Honestly, I didn't. My sister is the one who figured out what I was doing... caught me at it, really..." Booster lifts his arms, palms up, "and she convinced me to talk to the doctor."

"Oh. Then... why?"

"Why was I burning myself?" Booster asks bluntly. Beetle flushes again, but nods silently. Booster pulls off one of his gloves and pushes the sleeve of his costume up, exposing an oval-shaped scar high on his inner forearm. He runs his thumb over the shiny-looking, slick white flesh. "It let me go away. There was so much in my head. Sometimes I felt like I couldn't do anything for risk of doing the wrong thing, and then I'd feel horrible for not doing anything, and I'd have so many thoughts that I couldn't think."

Beetle doesn't quite look like he understands yet, but his mouth is sort of shifting through various thoughtful poses within the range of 'pondering face'. Booster can tell he's trying to figure out an experience to relate this to.

Booster appreciates the effort, but he knows that calling attention to it will just embarrass Ted more (and maybe enough that the other man would retreat entirely). So he just continues to explain,

"The physical pain would pull my focus to it, clear and singular. I had to pay attention, so I wouldn't lose control. I could end up hurting myself worse than I intended." Booster taps the hidden, larger scar on his leg. "That one got out of hand. Coach was pissed I couldn't run drills, but everyone believed me when I said it was an accident."

He extends the arm with the exposed scar toward his fellow superhero. Blue Beetle sort of recoils without meaning to, then catches himself.

"Uh... what...?" Beetle stammers.

"You can touch it," Booster says, affecting a casual tone. "See that it's real."

"I don't need the proof," Beetle replies hurriedly.

"It's okay," Booster tries to assure his friend. They remain in their awkward poses for a little while longer, then Booster withdraws his arm and the offer. He pushes his sleeve back into place and puts the glove back on.

"I'm... sorry..."

"You don't have to apologize. I just figured I'd offer." Booster's smile this time is slightly wry. "Since you are Mister Science."

"Says the time-travelling atheist."

"Time-travelling atheist football player," Booster corrects.


End file.
